


the water looks lovely today

by Random_ag



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dream You Sinner! AU to be specific, Drowning, Nightmares, So yeah have fun, Suicidal Thoughts, Vertigo - Freeform, Vomiting, falling down a cliff, implied suicidal instigation, stuff getting into orifices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27261634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: It's water.It's just water.
Kudos: 5





	the water looks lovely today

There is a cog missing.

There is always one fucking cog missing.

The problem, in this case, is that the one missing cog is the only thing that stands between Joey and a terrifyingly long fall into the swirling abyss of ink.

The rickety lift suspended above the pit can’t move without it.

Of course.

He looks to the dark liquid beneath him, at how it glistens with flahses of white and gold in the dim lights.

Vertigo settles in.

He falls to his knees, struck by nausea.

If he falls…

If he _falls_ …

His brain picks the wrong things to think. The wrong things to consider as favourable, desirable outcomes.

If he falls.

His head is spinning, hurting, throbbing wildly and painfully, insanely so. He feels his body shift and contract, starting from his stomach and climbing all the way up to his throat; he feels his mouth open and the soup he dared drinking almost miss the obvious exit completely as he pukes. He feels the acidic taste in his mouth during intervals between retches of vomit while the liquid waste burns in his nostrils as it leaks from them as well.

He vomits until all he can spit out is water.

If he falls.

If he falls, he still thinks.

And his brain keeps suggesting the wrong things to his shaking body.

With the corner of his eye, he catches the seeing tool.

Discarded near the cliff’s edge as he grossly expelled the contents of his stomach, of which his intestines were so unworthy.

He grabs it, fingers still trembling - he needs Henry. He needs to see a friendly handwriting in all of this. He needs to be reassured.

There’s no trace of him anywhere.

Then again he hasn’t checked everywhere.

He swallows (the aftertaste of his own stomach’s acid makes him grimace) before carefully scanning the waters so far away below him.

On the slow, opaque waves, Henry’s words smile at him just like he used to.

_The water is lovely today._

Joey’s chest seems lighter.

It’s water.

It’s just water.

It’s so dark, he thought it might have been ink.

His head seems lighter too,

But it can’t be ink. It couldn’t be ink.

Henry wouldn’t lie to him.

How dark the water is.

He smiles a little, pushing himself up.

It’s terribly hot in this place. Terribly hot and humid.

A refreshment would be nice.

What luck! Henry said the water’s lovely, too.

The edge... He forgets all about the edge. He stands on it, eyes fixed on the dark, dark, dark sea under his body. He can feel Henry’s large, friendly hands on his arms.

It looks so good.

So inviting.

Just a step.

_The water is lovely today._

Henry smiles beside him.

_Don’t you wanna jump in?_

There’s air.

And then pain.

And ink.

Joey coughs and inhales, and the poison seeps in his throat.

He fights to break the liquid’s surface, he needs to breathe, but it’s solid, it rejects him, his prthesis is gone and his only leg can’t do much, the ink climbs into his nose, his eyes, his ears, pries his mouth open from the inside, floods his lungs, he can’t breathe, it’s too much, it’s too much, it hurts, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe -

**_\- he sits up, and it might take a little, but he notices he’s in his bed, sweating a tropical rainstorm, tears streaking his face and mouth agape to take in all the oxygen he can, and he’s home, far away from any ebony ocean trapping him into endless drowning, and he coughs and lays, exhausted by a nightmare -_ **

\- and he’s safe.

He sits against a sepia wall.

He can breathe.

He can move.

The cog.

The cog is missing.

He needs the cog.

He must go find it.

He stands.

For some reason, he doesn’t approach the cliffside until the cart arrives.

And for the whole ride, he keeps his eyes closed.

And breathes.


End file.
